


beginnings

by vampiresuffrage



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, a few small moments of melanie having a rough time but mostly happy, christmas decorating!!, it's mostly just soft and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiresuffrage/pseuds/vampiresuffrage
Summary: Melanie didn't really do Christmas anymore. She still couldn't find it in her to say no when Georgie asked her to come over and help her decorate.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24
Collections: Cowards Holiday Exchange 2019





	beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarkomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkomi/gifts).



> casey!!!!! this was a very cute prompt and i hope you enjoy!! merry christmas <33

Melanie pretty desperately needed something resembling normalcy in her life. Maybe that was why she was so quick to agree when Georgie asked if she wanted to come over to help decorate for Christmas. 

After Melanie’s dad died, the holidays were hard. Usually she and her crew from the show had some sort of holiday party, but. She didn’t decorate her own apartment, and on Christmas day she gifted herself a very expensive bottle of wine to drink all herself. The Christmas after she lost the show was worse.  
  
But now there was Georgie. Georgie invited her over to decorate and promised her all the cocoa she wanted. Melanie said yes. 

Sure, she and Georgie had known each other for years, but now they’d been on two dates and it was the first time she was going to Georgie’s apartment since then and it was the holidays and. Melanie was nervous. She felt like she was justified in that. It was a nice kind of nervous though. Nothing was trying to kill her, nothing was trying to end the world. She was just nervous to go visit the woman she was dating. 

A normal kind of nervous. It was refreshing even if her heart was in her throat. 

Georgie asked her to come over at four so she had time to finish recording that week’s What the Ghost and she could just focus on decorating. Melanie left at 3:15, hoping she’d figure out what to do with her hands in the time it took her to walk. 

She didn’t. 

She knocked on the door at 3:53 anyways. The door opened, and Melanie’s nerves immediately disappeared. Georgie was smiling wide at her, holding The Admiral in her arms like a baby. Melanie smiled back, feeling like she could breathe properly for the first time since...well, since the last time she saw Georgie, frankly. 

“Come on in! Go sit on the couch, I’ll get you that cocoa I promised.”  
  
“Okay, yeah. Sure, sounds great.”  
  
The Admiral jumped down from Georgie’s arms on the way to the sitting room and followed Melanie to the couch. She’d always teased Georgie and said she and The Admiral had a special connection, and honestly it was probably true. That cat loved her in a way no other cat ever had. 

He jumped up into her lap as soon as she sat down, settling and purring loudly before she even touched him. She petted him absentmindedly, staring out Georgie's sitting room window and decidedly _not_ thinking about how The Admiral was warm enough to soothe the ache the cold outside caused in her newly healed leg. Work was an off-limits topic with Georgie. Neither of them had ever said as much, but it was one of those unspoken rules they both just understood. 

A few minutes after they settled, Georgie walked in with two borderline absurdly large mugs of cocoa with whipped cream. Melanie took hers with a grateful smile and decided it wasn't the time to make fun of the mugs, not when she'd just noticed the design on Georgie's sweater.

"Live to ride, ride to live?" she asked, doing her level best not to laugh hard enough to spill cocoa all over The Admiral. "And the skeleton's a bold choice for a Christmas sweater, don't you think?"

Georgie's face lit up. "You finally noticed! What, don't tell me you don't love it."

Melanie shook her head, but she couldn't stop smiling at the woman in front of her. "It's very _you_ , Georgie. I'll give you that much."

"I thought so too!" Georgie sat down next to her, close enough that their shoulders touched. "Now, how do you feel about decorating Christmas trees?"

"Oh, uh--" Melanie shrugged. "Been awhile since I've done it, but I can manage."

"Great, because I have some lights to hang, so I thought I could do that and you decorate the tree. I figured, with your leg, asking you to climb a stepstool a dozen times would be a bad idea."

"Right, probably." Melanie didn't entirely love the reminder that she still walked with a limp, but.

Georgie nodded, then shifted to rest her head in Melanie's shoulder. "Y'know, I never would've asked you on a date if The Admiral didn't love you. He can always tell if someone's worth my time or not."

That startled a laugh out of Melanie, effectively pulling her out of her head. "Oh, really?"

"I swear, he's never been wrong. And he loves you!" 

A warmth settled over Melanie's chest, and it barely had anything to do with the cocoa she was sipping. "Good to know, I guess." She scooted a little closer, close enough for Georgie to settle against her side. "When should we start decorating?" 

Georgie hummed. "It can wait until we've finished our cocoa, I think. Plus, you can't get up until The Admiral does. He'd never forgive you."

Melanie laughed. "Well, I guess we're stuck then."

"Here," Georgie said, leaning forward. She grabbed a remote and turned on the telly, flipping absentmindedly through channels. 

Eventually, she put on some Hallmark movie that was already halfway over. Melanie was a bit preoccupied with how perfectly Georgie fit against her to pay attention. The cocoa was gone before the female lead even realized she was in love with the male lead. The Admiral hopped down from Melanie's lap and trotted off towards his food bowl just before the climactic kiss in the movie. Neither of them moved until the credits rolled. 

Georgie got up slowly. She kissed Melanie's cheek before she stood, and Melanie was more than grateful that Georgie took their empty mugs to the kitchen because Melanie was smiling like a middle schooler.

When Georgie came back, she was holding a large box that had garland spilling out of it. It was all for the tree. Georgie told Melanie everything that was in there and what order to put it on the tree, then put on some Christmas music with the volume almost too loud and got to working on the lights. 

Melanie hadn't decorated a Christmas tree in years, so she probably did a pretty shit job of it. The best part of it all was that the entire time she was working, she could hear Georgie singing along to every song that played. Georgie would tell anyone she wasn't much of a singer, but Melanie could hear her smiling as she did and it filled the apartment with her excitement. 

The lights were hard to mess up, so they were mostly fine, but then came time to do the garland and she wound it too tightly at the bottom, so by the time she got to the top half she was just doing what she could to get it all the way up and by the top it barely spiralled at all. The ornaments were nice, a mix of solid colored bulbs and bright souvenir ornaments. She thought she did a good job of those at first, but the more she looked the more she found wrong with it. She rearranged ornaments until she heard Georgie putting away her stepladder and forced herself to be finished. 

She was squinting up at the tree looking for something she could point out to Georgie as something she did a good job on when Georgie walked up behind her and rested her chin on Melanie's shoulder. 

"It looks great," Georgie said quietly, bumping her head softly against Melanie's. 

Melanie snorted. "It looks like shit, but at least you've still got plenty of time to fix it before Christmas." 

She felt Georgie shake her head. "No, it's perfect. Better than I could've done myself."

"Georgie, I've seen your apartment at Christmas before." Her decorations were always perfect. They were entirely Georgie, and they were done well enough that Melanie wouldn't be surprised if she saw them in a Christmas catalogue.

"Yeah, they suck. I do it alone, and it's boring. It's nice having you over to help, Melanie. You were here with me to do the tree, so it's perfect. I'm not going to redo it. If I do, it won't make me think of you."

She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Melanie's lungs ached, and her face got warm. It had been…too long since somebody spoke to her like Georgie. 

Melanie turned around and hugged Georgie. "Thanks for inviting me over," she muttered, her face buried in Georgie's shoulder. 

"Of course, Melanie. You're welcome here whenever you want. No matter what, alright?"

Melanie nodded. It was almost too close to Institute talk, but Georgie knew exactly how far away to stay from that line.

"Do you want to go sit back down? I've got, like, every Christmas movie ever. I can make more cocoa too if you want."

Melanie pulled back to smile at Georgie. "That sounds great."

Georgie pulled Melanie by the hand over to the couch. Once Melanie had sat down, she went back to the kitchen to put on the kettle, and came back to pick a movie while she waited. Melanie was less than surprised that she picked the Nightmare Before Christmas. Spooky-but-nonthreatening summed up Georgie pretty well, so of course her first choice of Christmas movie was a skeleton trying to learn to be festive. 

The second round of cocoa was in equally large mugs as the first. The one she handed Melanie said World's Best Grandma on it. Melanie raised an eyebrow at Georgie, but Georgie just shrugged and winked before settling in next to Melanie.

"So did you buy yourself the ridiculous sweater and mug? Or were they gifts?"

Georgie laughed at that, throwing her head back. Her nose wrinkled when she laughed and her eyes squeezed shut and she was beautiful. "First of all, the sweater is wonderful. I bought it myself a few weeks ago. The mug I actually, uh. I bought it for Jon back in Uni when we were still dating? He hasn't touched it in years though, don't worry! I know you'd rather not share germs with him."

"I would mind less if you didn't say it like _that_. Sharing germs? Really?" 

Georgie laughed loudly, shaking her head at Melanie. "Do you want to switch mugs?" 

Melanie sighed heavily. "It's _fine_. Just never insinuate anything about me sharing anything with Jonathan Sims again."

"I will do my best." She kissed Melanie on the cheek again and laid her head on her shoulder, turning her attention to the movie. Jack was singing about how he didn't understand Christmas decorations.

At the end of the song, Melanie reached out with her free hand to lace her fingers with Georgie's. The Admiral jumped up onto the couch with them a few minutes later, purring loudly. 

Melanie saw the tree she'd decorated twinkling softly in the corner of the room in her periphery. Maybe Georgie was right. Maybe it was sort of perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> for anyone who was wondering, [this](https://www.buckle.com/ugly-christmas-sweater-live-to-ride-sweater/prd-56582SYP91322B/sku-6035000100/i18n:us?vsm=1&color=black&size=large&blLocaleCode=en_US&blCurrencyCode=USD&gclid=Cj0KCQiAovfvBRCRARIsADEmbRJMu4iXv6C3sVgGi1aEiwygLD2fiHSt3H7YDiQZF-JXN79msLCya90aAtD-EALw_wcB) is georgie's sweater!!


End file.
